A/HRC/41/54/Add.2 60. In general, civil society consultations confirmed documented concerns that asylum seekers and refugees experience extreme hardship in securing decent, dignified livelihoods, and have limited access to basic services across the United Kingdom. 91 61. In March 2018, the Government published a green paper on its Integrated Communities Strategy and, in February 2019, it published an accompanying action plan. 92 Although civil society actors seem generally to welcome these developments, they have also expressed concerns, including the view that the policy disproportionately emphasizes migrant communities’ abilities and responsibilities in relation to integration without similarly elaborating the responsibilities of host communities or guaranteeing adequate State support for the processes and institutions necessary to achieve national inclusion. “Brexit” and racial equality E. 62. The circumstances and effects of the decision by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, or “Brexit”, are broad and complex, many falling firmly beyond the purview of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate. Furthermore, the Special Rapporteur expresses no opinion on the merits or demerits of the decision. The present section focuses narrowly on the seeming impact of Brexit on racial and religious equality and nondiscrimination in the United Kingdom, identifying human rights concerns of great urgency. To be clear, Brexit has not newly introduced racism and xenophobia to the United Kingdom – both have a long legacy that extends as far back as the historical European projects of slavery and colonialism. That said, national debates and certain practices and policies before, during and after the Brexit referendum in 2016 have amplified racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in the United Kingdom. Public and private actors have played dangerous roles in fuelling intolerance. Among them, politicians and media outlets deserve special attention given the significant influence they command in society. 63. Consultations held with the Special Rapporteur have confirmed that in the United Kingdom explicit expressions of racial, ethnic and religious intolerance have become more acceptable, in ways that mark a notable shift. On the one hand, the Special Rapporteur acknowledges that extreme right-wing parties have not enjoyed political success in the United Kingdom as they have done in other parts of Europe. On the other hand, however, various stakeholders have raised the concern that extreme views – on both the right and the left of the political spectrum – have gained ground in mainstream political parties and in parliaments across the United Kingdom. Indeed, stakeholders have raised serious concerns about the failure of political leaders on the right and the left to consistently and unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the media, in public spaces and even by members of the United Kingdom parliament. 64. Consultations also raised serious concerns about the role of print and online media platforms in spreading racist and xenophobic views and in stoking a climate of intolerance and prejudice, including by disseminating false or misleading information. Indeed, the Special Rapporteur herself was the subject of thinly veiled and even explicitly racist, intentionally misleading media coverage during her visit. 93 It is vital that the Government take decisive steps to curb the work that media platforms are doing to incubate and propagate racism, xenophobia and related intolerance (CERD/C/GBR/CO/21-23, para. 16). A promising and innovative civil society initiative to fight intolerance is the Stop Funding 91 92 93 See, e.g., www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/race-rights-uk-submission-uncommittee-elimination-racial-discrimination, sect.4.6, and www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/what_we_do/multilingual_advice_for_asylum_seekers/ destitution_support. www.gov.uk/government/news/james-brokenshire-unveils-next-steps-to-building-integratedcommunities. To be clear, her visit also received fair, independent and rigorous coverage from the many United Kingdom media platforms that continue to conduct their operations professionally. 17